


Actual Vampire Queen

by Ann1215



Series: All About the Bass(ist) [1]
Category: Danisnotonfire - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, And majors in music, But just of him playing the piano, Dan Howell is a Pianist, Dan still has a YouTube channel though, Doing media production, F/M, Mild Language, Phil Lester is also in University, Phil Lester is the best wingman to ever, sophomore year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ann1215/pseuds/Ann1215
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A University/College AU where Dan studies music, Phil rocks at media production and how the bassist of an indie rock band called Dipping Vice makes Dan even derpier than usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Actual Vampire Queen

**Author's Note:**

> If you recognise this work, no, I didn't steal it, I'm still onfireforhowell. I figured I'll move the stories about Dan and Lynn here because I'm actually thinking of making this into a series. Pianist!Dan is a thing that needs to happen more often, imo.

“Hey, Dan guess wh-oh my god, what happened in here?!”

Dan looks up from where he’s sort of stooped over the piano in their lounge to look blankly at Phil, who’s kind of staring at him from the doorway in horror, and probably a little bit of fear, come to think of it. He turns around in his seat, ignoring the squeaking of the leather and takes note of the insane amount of sheet music that’s pretty much covering half of the entire floor surface, as well as some that have migrated towards the couch on the other end of the room. How the hell did that even happen?

He turns back to look at Phil and twirls the pencil in his hand, gesturing at the piano before him. “I was composing. Which you’d have known if you went home last night, you arse. It’s like, what, noon now?” Dan snorts, and squawks as he tries to dodge a balled up sheet of music, and predictably fails. “Hey! That could have been important!”

Phil sighs and rolls his eyes, so Dan figures he must be pretty exhausted to seem that cross. What the hell had he been up to? “Try four in the afternoon. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that had instructions for how to hide a dead body using sheet music, there’s seriously a lot of it, Dan and-you’ve distracted me from my news!”

“Well, I would say sorry, but I’m not really-alright, sorry! Please stop hitting me with my hard work!” Dan quickly exclaims before Phil really does destroy the important bits, and raises his hands in surrender. “What’s this exciting news, then?”

His friend takes a deep breath, and Dan is keenly aware he probably has to be nice to Phil for the next couple of hours, at least. Now that he’s got a proper look, there are dark shadows underneath Phil’s eyes and his hair is slightly dishevelled, like he’d been doing a lot of work. “Well, I was out yesterday and up until the ungodly hours of the morning because I was helping a classmate of mine record a video for her band and then editing it-Dan, why are you laughing now?!”

“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to-just, go on.” Only Phil Lester would be up past midnight at someone else’s place and doing work for them, honest to God.

“Right. Anyway, they gave me a couple of free tickets to their gig tonight because of my help! They’re playing down at Proud Camden, and I said I’ll go and see them,” Phil finishes, and he brandishes the aforementioned tickets gleefully.

“… That’s their compensation?”

Phil shrugs, seemingly uncaring. “They also gave me free pizza and coffee, which was why I was up so late and Alicia and Ricky, they’re siblings, let me crash on their couch. But it doesn’t really matter though, I’ve been meaning to go to one of their shows ever since I found them on YouTube and Dan, you have to come and see them, seriously.”

Dan frowns, and says, “But what if I don’t like them? I mean, yeah, they’re booked at Proud Camden, but that’s still no guarantee they’re great-“

“I’ll show you the video I’ve been working on and if you really hate them, then I’ll find someone else to go with. Alright?” Phil impatiently acquiesces, and five minutes later they’re sat in front of the computer and Dan’s kind of impressed with the main vocalist, but then the other musicians come into frame and his jaw sort of drops when he registers them.

“Holy fuck, a girl bassist?” Nobody can fault Dan for the way his voice sort of breaks a little, because girls breaking stereotypical musical gender roles are kind of more than amazing, and he’s had a crush on Marceline from Adventure Time forever. Hell, she’s even the female vocalist. “And a girl drummer? Where the hell did you find them?”

Phil laughs a little, and replies, “I told you, YouTube. And hush, just watch the video,” so Dan does just that.

He realises Phil is an evil genius when the camera zooms in on the bassist’s fingers when she’s doing a particular run and he can’t stop staring at how smoothly they move, and then it suddenly pans out to a shot of her winking and his throat pretty much dries up at that point. Her hair is up in a messy ponytail and he sees awesome purple highlights in the midst of blackness, and by the end of the video Dan figures he’d probably recognise her by the red frames of her glasses and the way she smirks like she’s got a secret to tell.

Dan kind of wants to know what it is pretty badly.

Phil teases him horrendously when he demands to know the name of the bassist, and says, “Come to the gig tonight and I’ll tell you! And I know you don’t hate them, so you still have to come either way.” And then he adds, “Plus, you’ll totally regret it forever if you don’t, so that settles it.”

That was how Dan found himself at Proud Camden at a quarter to ten, but he’s forgotten how much he hates the outside world because the whole place is literally packed to bursting. He and Phil try to avoid being groped by drunk girls (and guys) with minimal success as they make their way to the bar, and by the time they get there both of them are pretty much sweating already.

“I fucking hate crowds,” Dan grouses as Phil orders their drinks. “What time are they supposed to be on? Wait, what are they called?”

Phil takes a swig of his drink before he answers, “Dipping Vice. Not completely sure what it means, to be honest, but it beats Gram’s Funk, which Ricky wanted. They should be up soon.”

Dan snorts and shakes his head. Phil still hasn’t told him the bassist’s name because he figures he should let him suffer a little for turning their lounge into a mini warzone. Dan disagrees but holds his tongue from saying anything further in case Phil threatens to take away his ticket again, and stares at the mass of writhing bodies on the dance floor, nursing his drink.

Suddenly the strobe lights in the place start to dim, and he’s pretty sure more than half of the people here are actually fans of the band because there’s a lot of screaming going on now, especially towards the stage where the curtains are drawn and he can’t help but feel excited as well. It’s been a long while since he’s gone out to these gig venues, and he’s far away from sweaty, groping drunks and his beer is still pretty cold in his hand, all good things.

And the curtains go up, and lights start to fill the room once more and in that moment Dan pretty much feels his jaw drop, because fucking-

Marceline (shut it, he still has no idea what her bloody name is), from what he can see, still has her glasses on, which is pretty adorable, in his opinion. But she’s also dressed in some cropped black leather jacket and this tiny white dress that stops halfway up her thighs and right then he starts feeling like a massive pervert, but then she’s putting on the strap of her bass and their frontman calls out, “Good evening, ladies and lads! We’re Dipping Vice, and we’re here solely for your entertainment.”

The screams just start getting hysterical and it continues for a few seconds until the band launches into an old Muse song, but Dan can’t even appreciate how good they sound live, when he’s got twenty-twenty vision and an awesome vantage point of the bassist from where he’s sitting. As the set continues, he’s vaguely aware of Phil singing along to them at the top of his lungs, but he can’t be bothered to shut him up because he’s too busy staring at the way Marceline’s fingers work the strings, and how she’s sort of just lost in the music, her voice soft and husky and doing things to him that shouldn’t be happening in public.

He doesn’t even realise they’d sung their last song, and at that point he’s resolved to the fact that she’ll always just be Marceline to him, but as he turns around to ask Phil if they could go home because the Top 40 remixes were stabbing his brain, he doesn’t find him by his side anymore.

Instead, Phil’s standing about ten feet away from the bar, so Dan gets up to walk to him and then stops in his tracks when he realises who Phil’s talking to and-

“Dan! Come on and meet them!” Phil calls out, and Dan’s feet carries him over without permission until he’s facing the entire band, and Phil starts making introductions all around. Dan nods at all of them politely, silently hyperventilating because the bassist was even prettier up close, lips ringed in red and mad eyeliner game prevalent behind her glasses. He loves the fact that she doesn’t bother to cover up the slight acne on her face, because confidence is such a hot look on a woman, and he’s so distracted by her huge, light brown eyes that he completely misses her name.

So because he’s pretty much socially inept, he doesn’t ask for a repeat and instead says, “Hi, Marceline,” and then stares at her in horror because what the actual fuck.

But then she lets out this infectious, full belly laugh, and Dan feels his lips quirking in return. Then, she replies, “Close, but it’s actually Lynn. High five me, AT fan,” and he does, mesmerised and takes note of her American accent. Phil’s still laughing his arse off beside him but he’s finally got a name to go with everything he’s noted of her so far and that’s pretty much all he wanted ever since he saw her. He makes small talk with the rest of the band, and he knows he keeps going back to Lynn, but he can’t help it. All of them were really nice, but to be honest, he kind of just wants to talk to Lynn all night long, maybe makeout with her a little in between discussions about the new FOB album, marathon the fucking Marvel movies together but he doesn’t say any of it aloud, thank God.

And at the end of the night, Phil and Dan say their goodbyes first because Phil’s actually sleep-deprived, so all of them exchange numbers with one another, and Dan feels his heart sort of jump a bit when Lynn keys in her number that he doesn’t even bother to check what she’s saved it as. So, when Dan gets home and he’s lying in bed after cleaning up his work in the lounge, he realizes one of his new contacts is saved as ‘Vampire Queen’ and he squirms a little in glee. He didn’t know how he could be more in awe at this woman already, and then she just bats it out of the fucking park that he’s resigned to the fact that he’s already more than a little in like with her.

He figures he’s more than alright with that.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this story, then leave me some love! =D


End file.
